Estsanatlehi-Changing Woman

The Apache called the earth goddess by this name, Estsanatlehi,for she never grew old. When her age began to show, she simply walked toward the east until she saw her form coming toward herself. She kept walking until her young self merged with her aging self and then, renewed, returned to her home. Among the Chiricahua Apache, the name of this eternal goddess was Painted Woman. "Turquoise woman" was the Navaho sky-goddess, wife of the sun. She lived in a turquoise palace at the western horizon, where each night she received her luminous husband. Sister (or twin or double) of Yolkai Estsan, the moon's wife, Estsanatlehi was able to make herself young each time she began to age, thus her name, which means the "self-renewing one." In this portrait, I have portrayed the twin aspects of Estsanatlehi meeting and merging within each other, with renewal and remembrance being key: We are the creatrixes of the cosmos, and we are magic. Let us never forget that which we were, are and are yet to be. Within this secret, beauty and yourh are never abandoned, but always incorporated into the conscious nature of what we are.